Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/798

 GEORGE DARLEY

Her sighs unto the air

The Wood-maid's native oak doth broadly tell, And Echo's fond despair

Intelligible rocks re-syllable.

Wherefore then should not I,

Albeit no haughty Muse my heart inspire, Fated of grief to die,

Impart it to my solitary lyre?

��650 Song

SWEET in her green dell the flower of beauty lumbers, Lull'd by the faint breezes sighing through her hair, Sleeps she and hears not the melancholy numbers Breathed to my sad lute 'mid the lonely air.

Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming

To wind round the willow banks that lure him from above:

O that in tears, from my locky prison streaming, I too could glide to the bower of my love'

Ah ' where the woodbines with sleepy arms have wound her, Opes she her eyelids at the dream of my lay,

Listening, like the dove, while the fountains echo round her, To her lost mate's call in the forests far away.

Come then, my bird' For the peace thou ever bearest, Still Heaven's messenger of comfort to me

Come this fond bosom, O faithfullest and fairest, Bleeds with its death-wound, its wound of love for thee!

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